web analytics

Pop Rock Nation

Tag: SingSnap

  • Sharing SingSnap with friends…

    Sharing SingSnap with friends…

    It’s been awhile sing my last karaoke post. I’ve been sharing SingSnap with friends and now I want to share with you!

    Back when I first started writing on Pop Rock Nation, I wrote about SingSnap.com. SingSnap is an online karaoke site. I joined it when it first started in 2006, then took a several year hiatus. I got active on the site again in 2013, when someone who was reading my private music blog wanted to hear my singing voice. I remembered SingSnap and realized it wouldn’t take much to oblige his request. I quickly got hooked on online karaoke and have been hanging out there ever since.

    Over the past few months, I’ve gotten involved in a private duet thread on SingSnap. This thread is where people who enjoy singing duets gather to find partners. It’s a good place to find people who share your taste in music and like to harmonize. Recently, we had a “challenge” which involved singing duets that met certain pre-determined requirements. The duet thread administrators paired couples up every few days and then that couple would work together to come up with a fresh duet. The first week, we had a “ladies choice” challenge. The women were responsible for choosing a song. I ended up being paired with an old Epinions friend named Andrew and together we sang this… I should mention that I have never met Andrew in person, but we both used to write for Epinions.com and have become “virtual” friends! I’m sure we’d be friends offline, too!

    This is not an easy song to sing, especially if you’re a guy. Andrew did a good job!

    Another challenge involved taking a song that was ordinarily not a duet and turning it into a duet. My partner for this challenge was a guy who loves to sing. I found one of his old recordings that he did fairly well and we turned it into this…

    It never would have occurred to me to turn “Your Wildest Dreams” by The Moody Blues into a duet, but I think it worked pretty well. It was a bit of a challenge to pull this off, but we had fun with the process.

    And sometimes, it’s just fun to learn new songs. This SingSnap user named Bullfrog and I have done a number of duets together and he learned “Somewhere In The Vicinity of the Heart” for our challenge.

    This is a country song featuring Shenandoah and Alison Krauss. It’s not so often that I find guys who can sing this one. My partner had to learn it.

    Other times, it’s just fun to find someone who can really sing and duet with them. Last week, I sang “You Don’t Have To Be A Star” with a SingSnap user from Texas named OBSEQUIOUS. It was a blast!

    I think this guy belongs on a stage…

    Yesterday, I was hanging on one of my favorite message boards and someone started a thread about karaoke. Naturally, I had to pipe up with my experiences with online karaoke and I think I might have gotten a few more folks to try it. I like to sing at live karaoke shows because it’s a lot of fun to have a real time crowd. But SingSnap is a great tool for people who like to sing, for learning music, working on technique, and meeting new people from around the world. It’s also a great place to learn some basics of sound engineering. I also confess that I get a lot of ideas for my music blogging from hanging out on SingSnap, especially on my private blog DungeonOfThePast, which is mostly about songs from the 70s and 80s. I only hope my neighbors don’t mind that I sing all the time. If I’ve inspired you to check out SingSnap, I hope you’ll give it a whirl. You can join for free and sing a limited number of songs. If you like it, you can get a paid membership for less than $100 a year.

  • SingSnap brings people together

    SingSnap brings people together

    This week, I’ve found out how SingSnap brings people together

    Next week, I will be in the midst of a move. The packers are coming to gather up our belongings on Tuesday, and by Friday, all our stuff will be on its way to Texas. Consequently, it’s unlikely that I’ll be writing nearly as much next week. But this week, I have enjoyed some creative pursuits, including much time spent on SingSnap.com. On Tuesday this week, I was unusually prolific on SingSnap and a man from Norway ran across my recording of Don McLean’s “Vincent”. I had done it in a lower key and it turned out pretty nice. He left me a comment and then listened to a few of my other recordings, on which he also left comments.

    I was curious about my new Norwegian follower, so I went to his SingSnap page. Turns out he has a very nice voice himself and even writes songs. He didn’t have many recordings up; in fact, over the past week, he’s more than doubled what was on his page the first time I visited. But I noticed that he had an “open duet” available, Don Williams’ and Emmylou Harris’ cover of the Townes Van Zandt song, “If I Needed You”. I actually had only heard Lyle Lovett’s take on that song.


    Emmylou Harris and Don Williams sing “If I Needed You”.


    Lyle Lovett’s version of “If I Needed You”.

    And I will admit that I pretty much guessed how Emmylou Harris would sing her part in the duet. I didn’t listen to her version of the song before I recorded my part. Consequently, my version is probably more like Lyle’s done in Emmylou’s key.

    Anyway, I joined “brumm101” on that song and it turned out nicely. I posted it on Facebook and much to my surprise, several friends listened and enjoyed it. In fact, a former English professor of mine, now retired from many years of teaching at Longwood University listened to our recording and wanted to know how we did it. I explained how on SingSnap, you can sing your part, post it, and others can join you if you give them that option.

    Another online friend, who lives in Texas and sings, vows that there WILL be karaoke when we finally meet. I “met” him and his wife on Epinions.com roughly eight or nine years ago. I actually met his wife in person at an Epinions Meet & Greet in Washington, DC. I understand he’s quite the singer and, in fact, used to write excellent music reviews on Epinions. We’ve kept in touch over the years, despite my many moves. He offered his take on my duet with the Norwegian, too. And so did another “friend” I’ve never met in person, but who is a musician and mutual friends with a chef I used to work with years ago. He offered some suggestions and checked out some other stuff I did. It was a nice bonding moment.

    Yesterday, SingSnap had a duet challenge asking members to sing duets with people from other countries. Since I am American and brumm101 is Norwegian, it worked out well for us. We sang Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe”. I think I might have found a new friend!

    “brumm101” and I sing an old hit by Sonny and Cher.

    Making and sharing music is exciting to me, even if I’m only doing it on an online karaoke site. If I manage to make new friends and find good duet partners in the process, that’s a good thing.

    I hope everyone has a good weekend. I’ll try to post next week before my computer gets packed up for the move. If I don’t manage to, I’ll be back when I’m no longer in transit to Texas.

  • SingSnap’s latest cool feature… infinite duets!

    SingSnap’s latest cool feature… infinite duets!

    I’ve been having a great time with SingSnap’s latest cool feature… infinite duets!

    If you’ve read Pop Rock Nation since I started writing here in January, you may know that I am a karaoke enthusiast. These days, I do a lot of my karaoke online at SingSnap.com. Though it’s not quite the same as singing live for an appreciative crowd in a bar, online karaoke has its own advantages over live performances. Online karaoke gives you a lot of freedoms you don’t have in a bar. In fact, I was reminded of this on my recent trip to San Antonio, Texas, when my husband Bill and I happened to be in a bar that was hosting a karaoke show.

    It was about 10:00pm when the show started. A couple of women started playing music and invited an older gentleman to come up and sing. He got up, did a decent job, got some half-hearted applause, and then sat down. Then another older man got up and sang and wasn’t as good. He sat down and then the two karaoke jocks did a duet of George Benson’s 1981 hit song, “Turn Your Love Around”. The KJs were decent singers and harmonized with each other nicely. But then they said to the bar patrons, “We promise the show will get better. It’s not going to be like this all night.” I was pretty turned off by that comment. Karaoke isn’t necessarily about singers sounding good, though it’s great when someone who can sing does. Bill and I left quickly because I got the sense that these two karaoke jocks weren’t very nice.

    When we got back from Texas, I found out that SingSnap.com had added a new feature to their online karaoke service– “infinite duets”. In the past, you could record a song and then harmonize once to it, or offer it as an “open duet” so other singers could join you. I have done a few duets on SingSnap and have enjoyed the experience, bonding with perfect strangers from anywhere in the world. The infinite duet feature takes that capability a step further. It allows you to record as many harmony tracks as you want. Since you can also change the key of a song if you want (or need) to, online karaoke almost gives you a basic sense of what it feels like to be a music producer.

    This week, I’ve had a good time experimenting with infinite duets. I’d sing the melody. Then I’d record a harmony line. Then I’d record another one and perhaps another until I had all the harmonies I wanted. The end results have been very interesting. I have a few examples posted which I will share here.

    Here’s my harmonized version of “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”. I changed the key so it’s higher, then recorded three parts so the final product is in three part harmony.

    I got a little carried away with “Love Me Tender”, which I gave five parts to. That one was my first effort and I got a little carried away with it, but I was just experimenting.

    I posted these two recordings on my personal music blog and a reader asked me to sing “The Rose”, a song made popular by Bette Midler in 1980. I was never a big fan of that song. I probably got sick of it because it was on the radio too much when I was growing up. Also, while I love Bette Midler as an actress, I was never the biggest fan of her singing, even as I recognize her immense talent for music. But after recording “The Rose” yesterday, I have a new appreciation for it. I only harmonized parts of the song and was doing so during a rainstorm, so I was a bit challenged. It’s hard to get the recordings just right because of Internet speeds and such. Still, I think this turned out pretty decently.

    One thing to remember with these infinite duets is that if the recording already has backing singers, you can’t erase them. It’s best to pick songs that don’t have backing singers or they’re subtle. I also think the infinite duets work best when you use short, simple songs. The longer and more complicated the song, the harder it is to get it right.

    Just for kicks, here’s a duet I did of “Leather and Lace” with some guy on SingSnap. I was very impressed with him because he actually sounds a bit like Don Henley.

    Anyway, I think this new infinite duets feature is a lot of fun and allows singers a great chance to be creative and make the songs their own. I’m going to play with it as much as possible until it’s time to pack everything up and start the road trip to Texas.

    Have a great weekend everyone!